Hello Girls-Born-Abroad :D *happy thread*

[farrah]

@Ira

I can think of one thing right off the top of my head: when i got married, my dad asked my opinion on the guy and what i said was the last word. Anyone i know in my family and inlaws in Pak, that is not the case. Girls are not even asked when finalizing the rishta.

yea .. it’s probably true for the most part. my life has been soo different (well not in every aspect) than what people generally think of pakistani girls as. but probably because i never really had female friends .. or a group of female friends … i went to a girls-only school, and at any given time, i had one friend. and the one friend i had through highschool … it was just weird. in college i had male friends. my best friend is a boy too.
and the rishta thing .. it’s really crazy. at first i also thought that it would be like all these rishtas coming and parents telling me what to do … but when i grew up, i realised it’s not at all like that. i had to find one myself

@arazvi

Hmm, well thats really a lot to think about. I guess bc of my peculiar nature to notice things I noticed a lot of diff, ofcourse focused on the family i spent time with in paki.

One thing i really noticed was that pakistan is a country in which the youth really look up to the american culture for some strange reason. Everyone thinks that posing the american culture or being ‘bad’ is so cool. Which was really quite annoying in the youth crowd I would come across in markets and places.

As for my family, the cousins i stayed with are all sisters. So because of this they might be a bit different than others, but they had strict rules. Couldnt go out just because, always with their mom. I felt that entertainment was limited, so were the shops. Ironically, I think people here in america are definitely more rooted into cultural and religious values. I wear hijab and when i came to paki, i would get more stares out in public than i do here in america!

Where are you? Pakistan?

schools in pak have gone crazy. really. and i agree with this “bad” is cool things going on. i was recently looking at pictures of my sister’s friends, who had their farewell … wow
it’s also really funny how we come to really realise culture and religion. in pakistan rules are more strict as opposed to abroad. life of a girl is more “tiny and restrained” over there. girls abroad have way more freedom, as i read in the replies i’ve gotten. but religion/culture understanding is still more/better in girl abroad. not meant as an offense, but an observation. like in saudia, girls arent allowed to go out without a male … and i cant see them do all those things like everybody else, but that place is “supposed” to be the epitome of religion and the religious ways.
well i’ve grown up in pakistan. spent my entire life there actually … but moved to netherlands almost 2 years ago for my study, and my boy (not pakistani)